Apple Ordered to Pay $3 Million Over Patent Voilation in Japan

Apple is again into the news but this time it is not because of the iPhone 5c or the iPhone 5s, it is because of the iPod as Tokyo District Court ordered Apple to pay ¥300 million ($3.3 million).

Apple is been asked to pay this amount to Japanese inventor Norihiko Saito for infringing on a patent covering the touch-sensitive click wheel used in the iPod Classic and older models of its music player.

The patent that Norihiko Saito’s company applied for in 1998 covers a technology for the Click Wheel controller that Apple has adopted for the music player in Japan since 2004, Judge Teruhisa Takano said in the ruling.

Saito’s damages come more than five years after he filed the patent lawsuit, during which time he demanded damages of ¥10 billion ($101 million), based partly on the number of iPods Apple had sold during that period. The final figure($3.3 million) that came up is way less than what was demanded ($101 million) before, Apple might not have any problems paying this amount considering the sales of the new iPhones.